Baseball Great by Tim Green

Baseball Great by Tim Green

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Josh is a 12 year old who is excited for baseball season to be starting. His middle school team is planning to have an awesome season. However, on one of the first days of practice, his dad comes and tells him that he won't be playing for his middle school team. His dad was a first round draft pick to play in the Majors, but an injury kept him in the minors for his entire career, which just ended. His dad doesn't want what happened to him to happen to Josh, because Josh has the potential to be a baseball great. So he takes Josh to Rocky Valentine to try out for his team, the Titans, who have a chance at competing at Junior Olympics. Josh soon finds himself in a world of weight lifting, hard practices, and super stacks--a protein drink that he has to drink every night to repair his muscles from the intense workouts.

At first, Josh is bullied by the older boys--the Titans are an under-14 team, and Josh is only 12. But he works hard and shows them that he is worthy to play on their team. He makes some friends on the team, but is slowly losing his previous friends, Benji and Jaden, though they never abandon him when he needs them.

Once he is "in" on the team, one of his teammates pulls him aside and gives him a bottle of pills. Jaden's dad works at the hospital, and using his reference books they find out that the pills are steroids. Rocky has been supplying them to his team to give them an edge against competition. Josh doesn't want to go to the police, so he and Jaden and Benji come up with a plan to make everything right.


This book had a plot line that was entirely predictable, however it is a decent read for middle school boys who are interested in baseball. It also brings up some issues that are relevant to middle school kids, such as father-son relationships, family finances, boyfriend/girlfriend pressure, bullies, and drug use in sports. If I was a 12 year old boy, I probably would have enjoyed it more!


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